The Summer of No Regrets (3 page)

At KHS I developed this fantasy about people reading my mind.

I
wanted
them to read my mind, because then they would say,

“Oh, Brigitta! Now we understand!”

Um…yeah. I got over it.

Dad used to kind of read my mind. When we made the long drive to Seattle for violin competitions, he could sense what sections I was nervous about without me even saying anything. If I was realy freaking out, he’d pull over and play them on his flute. Then he’d give my shoulders a rub and say, “Relax, Gidget.

You’re my star whether you win or not.”

But all that changed when my grandparents died. After that, it was like a door had shut between us.

My grandfather Opa died around the winter solstice during

“that” year—the year I went to KHS. And Nonni died near Valentine’s Day. It’s a funny thing when people die. Okay, it’s not
funny.
What I mean is that before it happened, I wanted so badly to be known by people at school, and after, I wanted to disappear. I couldn’t risk bursting into tears or something stupid.

A few times I almost did, but I was able to stop it. The trick is not to let yourself feel anything too strong. Just keep everything sort of even. It’s better not to play the violin, for example.

No sooner had I figured out how to disappear, than Mom and Dad’s chanting, drumming, eco-happy friends finished building The Center out of old tires and dirt. The Center is an Earthship.

Dad says it’s “a completely independent globaly oriented Dad says it’s “a completely independent globaly oriented dweling unit made from materials indigenous to the planet.” Translation: a half-buried building insulated with pop cans. Not that I’m alowed to drink pop.

The Center is Dad’s dream come true. Malory and I spent our formative years in a single-wide on our twenty acres so that The Center could finaly rise out of the ground, gleaming with social consciousness. The whole thing is all adobe and solar panels and sloping greenhouse windows wedged into the hill like a glass stairway. The upstairs gazes from the hiltop like a tranced-out giant. The front door is his nose.

With its thick, rounded wals and trees growing inside, it looks like a combination of something out of
Star
Wars
and an elf dweling from
Lord
of
the
Rings
. The
Seattle
Times
featured it in their Living section, along with a complete rundown of what the Schopenhauers were up to: drumming in the sweat lodge (Dad), past-life regression workshops (Mom—who also talks to fairies, though, thank God, she didn’t tell any reporters).

Needless to say, none of the other freshmen lived in Earthships (with or without fairies).

Dad got realy busy after that. There was “no time” to drive me to Seattle for Youth Symphony, so I had to quit “for a while.” (Right.) He lost his flute (he said), so we couldn’t practice together. He started trying out this new “spirituality” thing, though he’d never even used the word
spiritual
before.

(That was Mom’s department.) Mostly that was a good thing, because he stopped exploding at us all the time. But it also made him a stranger.

And then nobody could read my mind.

What is it to be known, anyway? Maybe being known is overrated.

•••

Something was wrong. I sat up in my sleeping bag blinking in the gray light of the loft. The air was cold, and my mattress had deflated, leaving me on the bare boards. Sleeping in the tree house had been more appealing than another therapy session with Malory.

Wind in the limbs rocked the tree house gently. I’d named this tree Eve, and she was a good place to be when life went south.

A cedar branch curved across the skylight like a protective arm.

A few moths fluttered in the domed glass.

I quieted my breathing and listened to the outside: squirrels chattering near the window, the buzzing of a wasp. And down below…That was it! The kinglets and robins were sounding an alarm. Something was down there.

It was freezing outside my bag. I yanked on my jeans and puled out my Nonni coat—the patchwork one she made me right before she died. No one knew I slept with it, but it made me feel better. I slipped it on and stuffed my feet into my sneakers.

Out on the porch I scanned the clearing. There! Twenty paces from Eve was…Oh, God, what was
he
doing here? Wasn’t the Hansen acreage enough for him? If there was a God, why would he (or she) send me this?

He sat against the Douglas fir I’d named Adam, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. He couldn’t see me on the tree house porch. I’d leave it that way. I could wait him out. I slowly sat myself down against the wall and put my hands flat on the damp boards. Pitch stuck to my fingers. Mosquitoes bit me. My hair probably looked like mice were living in it, and I hadn’t brushed my teeth. He’d better go away soon.

At least ten minutes went by. Luke Geoffrey leaned back against Adam, ran his hands through the pine duff. He was beautiful. I hated myself for thinking that, but he was. He looked sad, and I had a ridiculous urge to go down there and hug him.

Instead, I was spying on him. This thought came to me slowly.

Instead, I was spying on him. This thought came to me slowly.

Most people who sit in the woods like that want privacy, and I was unabashedly scanning his face for clues about his sadness.

His mother had died, I thought. No, he had befriended a homeless orphan child he’d found in a subway station in Manhattan. She was six, and he’d convinced his parents they should adopt her. But she’d died, horribly of AIDS the folowing year, since her mother was a heroin addict. All Luke had left of her was a Raggedy Ann doll he had given her, and now he carried the doll in his pocket, crying into its stained apron when he was alone.

Luke got up from where he was sitting, and I was instantly, screamingly embarrassed about the orphan girl, as if he could read my mind from down there. This was the boy who had infrared humiliation-sensing capabilities. This was the boy didn’t know anything good about me. He didn’t know I was deep and philosophical or that I had won violin competitions. He only knew I read the
National
Enquirer
.

He started walking toward Eve.
No!
I thought.
Go
back!
Or at least don’t look up. Every muscle in my body tightened. I would stay perfectly still and not breathe until he went away. He stopped and picked a few huckleberries, lifted his palm to examine them, and then dumped them on the ground and squished them with his foot. He crouched to tie his shoelace. I could see the back of his neck as he bent forward.

And then I saw her. She emerged from behind Adam, all in one motion: tawny gold fur, white muzzle outlined in black.

“Cougar!” I heard myself scream.

She was probably seven feet long from nose to tail. I don’t know why I decided she was female; I’d never seen a cougar outside of Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. Cougars don’t let people see them unless they want to be seen. Dad says they can track a person for miles and he’ll never know.

Luke fell backward, catching himself on his hands. The cougar’s ears lowered as she locked eyes with him. She was cougar’s ears lowered as she locked eyes with him. She was terrifyingly beautiful: strong and sleek. Luke froze.

My knuckles were white on the railing. “Get big!” I yeled.

“Stand up!”

He must have wondered where the disembodied voice was coming from, but he didn’t dare look away from the cat. He got to his feet and began backing away from her. I could see that he’d soon be trapped against the bushes. I had to think like a cougar. Luke certainly wasn’t going to.

I clambered down the ladder. The cougar didn’t even look at me. I had nothing to fight her with. I tore off my Nonni coat, not sure how that was going to help. All I could hear in my ears was my own holering. I had no time to consider whether I was crazy.

Luke was yeling “Get away!” At the cougar or at me, I couldn’t tel, but I raced forward and began whacking at the cat with my coat. (Yes, I realize now, I was crazy.) The cougar shook her head, like the coat was an annoying insect. She laid her ears flat and opened her mouth. Four huge canines gleamed in the morning light. Her muscular shoulders rippled as she moved toward us, and a hiss like a rattlesnake came from her throat.

Luke was breathing hard. “Holy shit,” he said. The cougar circled. She was fixed on Luke. I scooped up a handful of dirt, rocks, and fir cones and threw it at her face, but she didn’t even flinch. I kept swinging my coat.

Luke grabbed a broken tree limb and thrust it at her. She snarled. My coat caught on a branch, and she swiped at it with a plate-sized paw. I felt naked without my coat. Undefended. I’d die here with Luke. Realy die. Not like in the stories I made up.

Focus
, I told myself.
Breathe
and
focus
.

I read an article about a woman kiled by a cougar in Colorado. The cat had sunk its teeth into her head and neck and peeled her scalp back. That’s how they’d find us: scalped, covered in leaves with all our vital organs eaten out. I wished I covered in leaves with all our vital organs eaten out. I wished I knew less about animals.

Luke swung the tree limb in front of us. The cougar stayed in a crouch, her tail twitching, her eyes locked with his. I became a two-legged rock thrower. “Oh, God!” I kept screaming, “O-god-o-god-o-god-o-god-o-god!” I yeled myself hoarse and went on yeling. I was drenched in sweat. We backed, one step at a time, across the clearing, past Eve. The cat folowed us step for step, tail low, icy golden eyes staring Luke down.

Then, as if she’d suddenly thought of something better to do, the cougar relaxed. Her canines disappeared, and her tongue came out to lick her nose. And then she turned and walked into the trees. Stopping for a brief moment, she looked back at us as if to say, “Not this time.” As quickly as she had appeared, she disappeared.

I colapsed against Eve. I was shaking and couldn’t stop.

Luke’s face was covered in dirt and maybe tears. I’d prayed never to see him again, but now it didn’t matter.

He held his hand out to me. I took it. “Thanks,” he croaked and puled me to him. He wrapped his arms around me. He was shaking, too. We stood that way for a long time. I smeled the wet wool of his sweater. He put his chin on my hair as if we’d always known each other. I felt the fear drain out of both of us.

Devon had never, ever held me like that. No one had.

Luke stepped back and looked at me, his hands still on my arms. Then he stepped into the clearing and picked up my Nonni coat from where the cougar had tossed it. Three huge rips ran down the back of it. I shivered and he put it around me. “Here’s your hero cloak,” he said.

His eyes were so blue I thought I’d fall into them and drown. I wanted to touch his jaw where it curved down to a strong chin streaked with dirt. His lips were wide and kissable. He smiled.

And then, in the middle of the most romantic moment of my life so far, I opened my mouth and said, “You do look like Trent Yves.”

Yves.”

“Omigod, omigod, omigod, Brigitta!” Natalie came tearing up the driveway of The Center and threw herself at me. “I’m so glad you’re not dead and in little bloody pieces all underneath the tree house! Hi, Clare.” Natalie threw herself at Mom, who hugged her distractedly. The air was chily damp, and my Nonni coat now had cougar-instaled vents. All morning Mom had been handing me mugs of motherwort tea (“great as a nerve tonic”).

It had been four hours since the cougar. I was not ready for people, but Dad’s friend Clyde Redd was here along with Buck Harper from up the road. Tarah from next door and her mom Rainbow arrived with lasagna. It had meat in it, so we wouldn’t be able to eat it.

Luke had let me lead him out as far as the driveway and then had walked home by himself. He hadn’t touched me again. I wished I hadn’t wanted him to. All morning my body had been acting strangely—my skin buzzing like it was full of bees, my throat full as if something was pushing against it. I kept thinking about the eyes of the cougar—the raw power of her. And I kept thinking about how Luke’s arms had felt around me—wanting him to come back and hold me again. A boy I hardly knew.

Several members of the Shivat Eiden group, all in skulcaps, were helping Mom harvest snap beans while watching the woods. Their row of bicycles was lined up along the porch rail.

Even in my antisocial state of mind, I felt a pinprick of excitement at having them here. This was the first real religion that had been at having them here. This was the first real religion that had been at The Center in a while. For the last six months, it had been make-it-up-as-you-go groups like the Out-of-Body Travelers and the folowers of Mamda, Channeled Ancient Warrior.

Tarah approached under Rainbow’s careful gaze. She touched my hand. “Are you all in one piece?”

Natalie gripped my arm. “Brigitta fought that cougar off with her bare hands. She almost died!”

“It wasn’t realy like that, guys,” I tried. “The cougar showed up. I chased her off. Everyone’s making a big deal out of it.”

“It is a big deal, sweetheart.” Natalie hopped onto the hood of Malory’s car. “Cougars eat people.”

“Not very often,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about it. My brain was still turning the whole thing over slowly—the cougar…

and Luke.

I had expected the cougar to run off when I rushed her. But when she wouldn’t take her eyes off Luke, I knew she was determined to kill him. And suddenly life had become my al-consuming goal—Luke’s life or mine, it didn’t matter. In that moment we both shared the same silver cord that held us to the earth.

But when Malory had found me shaking in the entryway of The Center, the story had come out differently than it had happened: it had been
me
sitting on the ground in front of Adam when the cougar appeared, me she’d locked eyes with, me alone who had used a branch and rocks and my coat to fend her off.

I’d meant to tell the real story, but it had been like teling a dream. When it came down to it, some parts wanted to be guarded, held only in my private thoughts.

In her usual running-the-universe way, Malory had hustled me to Mom and caled the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Mom had cried and made me cocoa with real sugar from some secret stash I didn’t even know she owned. Dad was busy with the retreatants and barely spoke to me. But that was busy with the retreatants and barely spoke to me. But that was normal.

Above us clouds moved away from the sun. Malory was leaning against the adobe doorway chatting up Rainbow.

Dad stood on a large boulder staring into the trees and concentrating intently. He wore no shoes, and his blond hair, free of its usual ponytail, had blue feathers braided into it. He was bare-chested (cringe), and he wore a medicine pouch—a little bag of herbs—on a cord around his neck. Why, why, why did he have to do that today?

He started to drum, which made Rainbow look around nervously and Malory wince. Malory had persuaded her to let Tarah come to the Tree House Club back
before
Dad got weird and turned his “center for eco-sustainability” into a “center for spiritual education.” He’d been an atheist until Nonni and Opa died.

“Mmm. It’s finaly getting warm.” Tarah unzipped her hoodie.

I puled the Nonni coat tighter around me. It didn’t feel any warmer to me.

Mom and Dad never gave me and Malory a religion. Being good flower children, they told us to choose our own paths.

Malory chose psychology at UC Berkeley. It’s not a religion, but it alows her to know everything. It made her crazy that Dad stopped being an atheist after she left for colege. It made her apoplectic that he was learning how to be a shaman from a mail-order course he found in the back of a magazine.

“So.” Natalie lowered her voice conspiratorialy. “Any sign of Trent? We should realy go warn him there’s a kiler animal loose, don’tcha think?”

I felt a pang in the pit of my stomach. After I’d had a shower that morning and begun to come out of my daze, I’d wanted to call Luke. The thought had filed me with panic, but I knew he couldn’t call me. He didn’t even know my last name. And I needed to reassure myself he’d made it home okay. But there was no listing for any Geoffreys (or Jeffreys or Joffreys) in was no listing for any Geoffreys (or Jeffreys or Joffreys) in Kwahnesum. I tried Facebook but struck out there, too.

Now I gazed into the tangle of evergreens. Was the cougar still brooding there, waiting for her moment? As a kid I’d felt connected to every rabbit and squirrel. Dad had caled me his Forest Girl. I’d
longed
to see a cougar, even making a little bed for them under a tree when I was six, with bunches of yelow flowers. (Turns out cougars aren’t attracted by flowers.) Now the thought of leaving the safety of The Center parking area set me shaking. I’d been too afraid to go as far as the Hansen mansion, even via the driveway.

Behind me something moved. I jumped and shouted. But it was only a truck puling up: blue, with a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife insignia on the door.

“Easy, girl.” Natalie put her arm around my shoulders. What was wrong with me?

A short, pocked man got out. He wore a tan shirt, like a Boy Scout, and a big hat. A rust-colored bloodhound hopped out after him. Dad came to greet him, drum in hand. “Paul Schopenhauer.”

“Officer Mark Angeles.” He shook Dad’s hand, not even blinking at his Crazy Horse appearance. “And this is Mack.” The dog sat obediently by his side. Mark and Mack. They were apparently a matched set.

“Good to see you, Mark.” Buck Harper stepped forward and shook the officer’s hand. “Don’t know if you remember me, but I taught your daddy how to hunt when he was eight years old.” Buck was ten times that at least and had lived in Kwahnesum since it was accessible only by donkey cart. “That cougar’s the one’s been eating my sheep,” said Buck. “There used to be a bounty on ’em. You could go out into the woods and shoot five, maybe six cougar and get fifty dolars a head.” Officer Mark nodded. “I’ve seen photos of that,” he said.

“That is barbaric,” said Clyde Redd.

Natalie nodded vigorously. “It’s just so wrong to shoot an animal like that.”

“You haven’t seen a cougar-kiled sheep, missy,” said Buck.

“And it could’ve been your friend, here. Cougars are a menace.”

“Only because we’re encroaching on their territory,” snapped Clyde.

I almost thought they’d come to blows except that Clyde teaches nonviolent communication at The Center.

Dad gestured to me. “My daughter, Brigitta. She’s the one who encountered the cat. It was my older daughter you spoke with on the phone.”

Officer Mark turned to me. “Are you all right?” I nodded. “She didn’t touch me. Just”—I felt embarrassed to say it—“scared me.”

“They’re pretty awe-inspiring.” He scanned a clipboard.

“Especialy if you’re all by yourself.”

I should correct him. I should tell him someone had been with me.

He eyed my coat. “Looks like she did more than scare you.”

“Oh, this.” I fingered the torn patchwork. “It wasn’t on me. I was…hitting her with it.”

Dad’s eyes widened. Wel, at least that got a rise out of him.

Officer Mark puled out a pen. “So, where were you when this happened?”

Mom walked over, brushing dirt from her hands, and began to rub my shoulders. I licked my lips. “If you folow that path and cross a footbridge, it comes out in a clearing. Look up and you’ll spot a tree house in one of the cedars. It’s kind of hard to see.” Next to me Natalie and Tarah listened with rapt attention.

Once I told about Luke, Natalie would pump me for every detail. And even if I didn’t tell al, she’d still move in and try to manage everything, exactly the way she had with Devon. Not that Luke was my boyfriend. Not that he’d even promised to come back.

come back.

I took a breath. “Across from the tree house there’s a Doug fir that’s two hundred years old.”

Dad had once let me count Adam’s rings by using a holow drill to take a sample of the tree’s core. (That was before he decided such a violation would anger the tree’s spirit.)
Tree
house. Old growth Doug,
Officer Mark wrote.

Of course, I couldn’t leave Luke out. Officer Mark would need to know his part of the story. But the Luke aspect of the experience belonged to a tender place in me. Not the gossipy place Natalie kept all her mental boy files and her celebrity image galery.

Dad fingered his drum, frowning. All his “journeys to the spirit world” and he’d never seen a cougar in these woods. Maybe it bugged him that I had.

As far as anyone knew, I had been by myself. It had just been Forest Girl sitting under a tree elder, communing with nature.

Mom rested her hands on my shoulders. Natalie, Tarah—

every eye was on me. A breeze set one of Dad’s feathers fluttering.

All Officer Mark needed were the facts about the cougar’s behavior. Did it matter whether there had been one human or two?

“I was…sitting on the ground…”

“Was there anyone else in the vicinity?”

“No.” I looked at Dad’s bare feet. “No. I was alone.”